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100 Days – Week of Shapes – Featured Quilt 5

Next up for the Week of Shapes we have our second hexagon quilt to share. This one is from Melissa Richie at We Shall Sew. It is the TNT (or Tried New Things) Quilt and features a modern rainbow of raw edge appliqued hexies arranged in a cascading asymmetrical design.

Melissa first attempted to learn to quilt back in 1997 but, it wasn’t until the modern quilt movement was fully underway in 2011 that she was inspired enough to finish her first quilt. In just one short year she’s designing her own quilts. Read on as she answers a few questions about her inspiration for this 50″ x 80″ quilt.

TNT (Tried New Things) Quilt by Melissa Richie

Question: What was your inspiration for this quilt?
Melissa: Well, the inspiration was actually a design on a t-shirt I saw on a guy at a cafe. The left side of the (aqua) shirt had asymmetrical red and white circles, but the right side was plain. I thought it was cool. I had to be sly and take a pretend picture of one of my girls in order to get a good picture of the shirt. :) The color inspiration came from a stack of hexies I’ve been collecting from swaps. I have over 200 hexies, so I had plenty to choose from. And I really love seeing the color spectrum on quilts. It makes my eyes happy. And, finally, I was inspired to actually make this quilt after the tsunami and earthquakes in Japan in March 2011. There was a call to make quilts for the survivors, and I really felt this was a good, clean aesthetic that a Japanese family might appreciate and enjoy.

TNT (Tried New Things) Quilt by Melissa Richie

Question: What is your favorite part of this quilt?
Melissa: Hmm… I think it was when I realized that the vision in my head was actually coming to fruition and was going to look good in real life! It doesn’t always work out that way, you know? :) But I do really love how it looked in the end.

Detail of TNT (Tried New Things) Quilt by Melissa Richie

Question: What did you learn from making this quilt?
Melissa: Well, I call it the TNT quilt because I Tried New Things. So many! From all the different techniques I tried, my favorite was learning to use the long arm. Personally, I think I learned that I can take something from a vision in my head to an actual quilt in a short period of time. And like it! I need to make more quilts that I like because when I’m making something I don’t really like, I’m not as motivated to finish it.

Melissa blogs at We Shall Sew and can be found on Flickr as well. She started out as a proud member of the LA Modern Quilt Guild but, after her move to the Denver area she quickly helped to found the Front Range Modern Quilt Guild. As President, she is very happy to report that they are growing every month!